


disarm you with a smile

by jadeddiva



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 20:03:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/944068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jadeddiva/pseuds/jadeddiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A lonely man who wants to protect his family.  A lonely girl who wants her family back.  Seven kingdoms seized by warfare.   A story in three parts.</p>
            </blockquote>





	disarm you with a smile

**Author's Note:**

> Going in a different direction with both Willas and Sansa in this one. Let's see how it turns out.

Part I: The Reach - Wherein Willas is a true player in the game and is fully aware of the plan to send Sansa to Highgarden. 

_Sansa Stark is fair, and frightened, so they tell us.  We have yet to actually meet her, but our spies at court say that she has suffered harshly at the hands of Joffrey.     Her claim to Winterfell will still exist even if her brother loses his head.  We will bring her to Highgarden, and you will marry her.  She will be safe from Joffrey there, but more importantly, so will her claim._

Willas reads the letter one more time, then burns it.  He hands the farmer who brought it from the capital some gold coin – enough to help his family for a month, or to be pissed away in the town tavern. 

“Thank you for your service,” he tells the man, who bows and scurries out the door. 

Willas sighs.  He does not respond to his grandmother’s letters, not because he doesn’t trust the people she has carrying them, but because there’s no need for his opinion.  This plan has been set in motion long before Margaery left for Kings Landing, and he has long since agreed to it.

He’ll be grateful when they send him news of what his soon-to-be wife looks like, though: rumor has it she favors her mother, and everyone he knows says that Catelyn Tully was one of the fairest women in the kingdom in her youth.

He sighs again.  Being the only Tyrell in Highgarden is lonely.   There are only so many times that he can visit the kennels or the rookery or the stables.  There is only so much correspondence he can answer within a given day.  There’s no one to amuse him during his waking hours since everyone, including his aunts and uncles and cousins, have gone to Kings Landing for Margaery’s wedding.

Willas feels a moment of sadness for Sansa Stark, who thought she would be Joffrey’s queen.  The Starks, however, do not play the game very well if it was so easy for a few simple machinations of his family to remove Sansa from the playing board.  How very sad indeed.

He reaches for his cane, signals to his man.  “I will go into town to eat tonight,” he tells him.  “Ready my horse.”

Perhaps some ale and the arms of a woman would do well to comfort him in his loneliness.  He does not like eating here, and there are some women at the Blossoming Rose who are discrete enough for the men of House Tyrell ( _we do not sow bastards_ , as Grandmother always says, _for we are not Baratheons_ ).

...

_Sansa Stark is so fair, brother! Pale skin and the reddest hair and quite lovely – lovelier than me, and lovely enough to make you happy!  She is so quiet and frightened and so young but she will grow and I do not think she cares much for your leg, just escaping Joffrey.  I tell her how wonderful you are and she seems to love you already.  I am eager to have her as a sister, and I know you will want her as your wife._

Margaery, ever dedicated to her skills, has included a sketch that Willas does not burn but rather stares at for some time.  Sansa Stark is indeed quite fair, and has the making of being a beauty – certainly far different than his beloved sister.   Where Margaery is indeed as fair and uncomplicated as a flower (a rose, he should think, for there are many women like Margaery and none like the Stark girl) there is something different in Sansa beyond the hair.  Margaery is a talented artist, and he hopes that this is a faithful interpretation, because he does not think he could find himself bored with a wife as striking as Sansa Stark.

Grandmother’s correspondence is not as glowing – the girl is apparently a dullard, speaking slow and painfully skittish, like a frightened puppy.  This is not surprising to Willas, for if their spies are correct, Joffrey is a monster and Sansa has been his plaything for too long.  Perhaps that is where her fierce beauty comes from – she is a Stark of Winterfell, niece of Lyanna Stark, and he remembers stories of how beautiful and fierce that wolf-maid was (she must have been, to bring a kingdom to its knees). 

He could do worse than Sansa Stark, he thinks.  She is probably not the dullard that Grandmother supposes she is – it takes skill to survive in Kings Landing with the Lannisters for as long as she has.  Perhaps she hides her light.  He can hardly doubt she would not do such, even if Margaery is sweet and kind and Grandmother appears to have her best interests at heart.   Tyrells are very good at keeping up appearances.

Regardless, he thinks as he looks over his shoulder at the sleeping girl in his bed, he will have to change his habits.  Perhaps paint Sansa’s future bedroom – there has been a painter come and gone a few days earlier that needed work, and Willas could not think of any then.  Perhaps this would be a good idea.  He would see what Sansa’s favorite colors were before he did such.  A letter will be dispatched to Kings Landing soon, for Margaery to find out.

The form stirs in his bed, and his loins stir as well.  Jeyne is a fair whore from the Westerlands, with blonde hair and big teats, and while he’s always enjoyed his time with her, the thought of Sansa Stark sharing his bed is a different matter altogether.  He hasn’t been with a virgin before, and the thought of startled cries from her lips is incredibly arousing.  He imagines Sansa as a blank canvas and he can think of nothing more tempting than making her in his desired image – not necessarily a wanton woman but someone who can enjoy what he offers, who will reach for him as they sleep side-by-side, who will abate his loneliness and who will bear him sons.

“Will you not come back to bed, m’lord?” Jeyne slurs, stretching, limbs still full of sleep.  He does not bring his whores home when his mother is here, but she is not here now, and he is tired of his footsteps being the only ones he hears in the family chambers (the servants at Highgarden have been trained to be so quiet that he never hears them).

He grabs his cane, walking over to the bed.  “Some correspondence.  I could not sleep.”

He kneels on the bed, leaning forward.  Jeyne reaches up to kiss him, winding her fingers into his hair.

Would Sansa Stark do that? Willas wonders.  He doesn’t think she’d moan, probably just sigh prettily, and it’s a very appealing thought.

Willas allows himself to settle into Jeyne’s arms, but his thoughts do not linger on the girl in his bed, but rather the girl that will soon be in it.  He cannot blame himself – there is something utterly appealing about Sansa Stark beyond her perceived innocence that he cannot quite explain, but which he is eager to explore.

...

He is out with his falcons when the next message arrives.  The speed startles him, and when he tears it open, he can see why.

The Lannisters have outplayed them: Sansa Stark is now married to Tyrion Lannister.

And he has just commissioned Sansa’s bedroom to be painted a beautiful pale yellow, for Margaery says she loves lemon cakes.

He reads further, laughs when he finds out Cersei Lannister was meant to be offered in her place (he would not touch that incestuous cow even if it was to save her life), then rips the letter into tiny pieces.

“It seems we have been outplayed,” he tells his cousin Lyonel, who has traveled here to spend time with his family and bring back a few of the best falcons and pups to his father’s estate.  Willas drank too much last night, and told far too much to his cousin, but there is little they can do now.  Tyrells protect their own, including each and every distant branch of the family tree.

“Will your sister still be Queen?” Lyonel asks.  Willas nods.

“I assume so – the people of Kings Landing love her, so our people say.” He sighs.  “I will admit I am a bit disappointed.  From all that others have said, Sansa Stark was quite a beauty.  She would have been so lovely to have a Highgarden.”

Lyonel remains quiet for a moment as a falcon dives down and returns to Willas’s outstretched arm, landing heavily on the tough leather glove.  Willas does not mind the silence – he rewards his bird with a bit of meat, then turns to Lyonel.

“And this one?” Willas asks.  Lyonel shrugs.

“He would do quite nicely,” Lyonel admits, “but I think you are being untruthful with me, cousin.”

Willas has known Lyonel since he was a young lad, but they are not close, and Willas does not see fit to tell the secrets of his heart to anyone save his siblings.  He smiles, a smile perfected in the many mirrors of Highgarden when he needed to trick the cook or his tutor, or someone else so that he could get his way.

“Dear cousin,” Willas lets the falcon fly again, “I am a confirmed bachelor by choice.  I do not much mind that I will not be married soon.”

Except he does.

And he thinks that, as he lays in his cold, empty, far too large bed (why must his family be so ostentatious?).   He has long since parted company with Jeyne, paying her for her service as well as the assurance of the brothel owner that no babe would come of their time together.

He gets up, fumbling for his cane, hearing it fall on the floor.  He slips off the bed as his leg begins to ache.  Crawling, he searches for the cane until he finds it under the bed.

It takes him some time to be able to stand again – his left leg is crying out in pain so greatly that he sees red behind his eyes.   He stumbles, half-dragging the leg behind him, to the desk.  There is a picture of Sansa Stark there, the one that Margaery drew.   Slowly, he draws back the curtain, and moonlight floods the room.

In the half-light, Sansa’s eyes look so sad, but there is a kindness in her smile.  She would not laugh at him as the whores have done when he cannot walk.   He feels like she would have been kind.

She might also not shudder at the twisted scars that crisscross his leg, like some noblewomen might.   She might hide it better, at least, than some he has known.  Sansa Stark has survived Kings Landing thus far; she must be able to hide her real thoughts.

There is sadness in knowing that what Willas wants most from a bride is someone who will not be repulsed by him.  He would take beauty, or disregard it completely, if his bride looked past his leg and at him.  Sadly, very few women in the Reach are able to do that.   That’s the price of great abundance, Willas knows all too well: frivolity supercedes common sense, pleasure in lieu of love and dedication.

He sits in the chair nearest the window, staring out over the vast expanse that he will one day inherit.  There will be another arranged marriage, he knows it, and whoever the lucky woman is, she will get all of Highgarden, and all of his pain and trouble. 

He considers calling for milk of the poppy, since the pain is almost unbearable tonight, but he chooses not to.  He grits his teeth, and takes a deep breath. 

_It’s good to be reminded of weakness_ , Grandmother would say. 

He will endure.  Alone, if he must, but he will.

...

Summer fades into fall in the Reach.

Margaery is married and widowed within hours.

Sansa Stark disappears from court.  Her husband, Tyrion Lannister, is accused of Joffrey’s murder.

Grandmother starts the long journey home.

Oberyn Martell dies at the hands of the Mountain.

...

Willas does not take Oberyn’s passing well. 

Despite the fact that Father despises the Martells, and Oberyn’s role in Willas’ crippling, Willas has never held a grudge.  Grandmother always taught them that it’s better to catch flies with honey than with vinegar, and Willas has always taken the better path.  He corresponded with the younger Martell brother, sent horses and falcons and pups to Dorne for each of Oberyn’s bastard’s births.

There’s no one to blame for his leg other than himself, after all; it is the curse of House Tyrell to feign modesty if it suits them but if it does not...

He signed himself up for the lists, not Father.

Losing his friend to the Lannister’s goon makes him feel ill.  While House Tyrell has been working silently in the shadows against the Lannisters, he does not think House Martell would do the same.  There will be war, and it will come to the Reach.  With all of his family in Kings Landing, he does not like thinking whose shoulders the responsibility will fall upon.

Grandmother returns home just as soon as the ink on his letter to Doran Martell is dry.  She seems surprisingly unrepentant for a murderess.  Willas wonders if he will be so glib when he is orchestrating coups at her age.

The thought makes him nauseous, but needs must and Joffrey was a bad egg anyway.

They sit opposite each other at the large table in the hall, the only Tyrells save for spare cousins that linger around Grandmother like flies on a putrid wound (a fitting description, Willas is starting to think).   She is there when Doran Martell writes back.  The letter is delivered to Willas by several of Martell’s own men, which impress upon him the contents of the letter.

_I know that your family chooses the best horse in the race, if you will pardon my turn of phrase.  Perhaps I might interest you in a new one, fresh from our own breeding stock, long since thought lost but brought back by the winds of war  - one that your family has backed before._

“Your sister is the Queen,” his grandmother says after she reads the letter.  “Your Father will be Hand of the King one day.  Your brothers fight for the King.  We have made our bed and now we must lie in it.”

“Have we?” Willas asks.  “Tommen is a boy, and boy kings can be replaced.  Father can resign from the small council.  Loras must stay in Kings Landing but Garlan can return home.”

“And the two of you join up with whatever champion Doran Martell is bringing to Westeros?”

“It will be a Targaryen, you can rely on that,” Willas points out with a sigh.   “Whether it is Aerys’ daughter or someone else, it will be a Targaryen, and we always bend the knee to Targaryens.”

“Then we will bend the knee when the dragons come,” Grandmother says.  “But not before.”

...

Things change.

Margaery is accused of adultery and imprisoned.

The Ironborn raid the shores of the Reach.

Loras falls at Dragonstone.

The ravens arrive with the letters in rapid succession, piling insult onto injury.  Garlan and Father, just as they arrive, must ride off - one to protect the Reach, the other to protect Margaery.

Willas becomes Lord Protector in Father’s absence.  He’s never really thought much about war before, since his leg prevented much thoughts of that nature, but he finds that he takes to strategy quite easily, and that he can dispatch forces to successfully rout the raiders.   It is a nice thought, to think he’s perhaps competent at this after all.

As they gain on the Ironborn, and as Margaery languishes under false accusations, he brings the matter of the Martells full-circle.

“The Lannisters have ruined us,” he tells her.  “They have imprisoned Margaery, they have stretched our resources and our men, they have left us open to attack from the Ironborn.”  He pauses.  “They have killed my brother.  I will not wait for revenge either.”

Olenna Tyrell looks at her grandson with steely eyes.  “You are not your father’s son,” she says softly.  “For that, I am happy.”  She nods her head.  “Do what you must to assure that when the rightful heir arrives we are not on the losing side.”

He writes to Doran that night.

_We are always interested in the fastest horse.  Praytell, my lord, where might we find it?_

The response arrives within a fortnight.  It is two words.

_Storm’s End._

...

It is Garlan who rides to Storms End while Willas stays at Highgarden.  The Ironborn raids cease as the winter rains of the Reach make it near-impossible to land safely on shore, and it seems even the heartier Kraken will not attempt such a perilous feat.

The rain keeps Willas inside, pacing, desperate for news from the east (Crownlands or Stormlands, he does not care).   The lull in the action has made his mind a frightening place to be, and he loathes that.

He misses Loras.  Whatever pain and sadness he thought he felt when his friend Oberyn died is nothing to knowing that his younger brother is no longer among them.  The Silent Sisters brought his body back home, and Mother sobbed as the faithful of the Reach sang lamentations for the beloved son of House Tyrell.  It did not rain that day, like it has for most of winter. 

Willas will forever be grateful for that.

There’s an emptiness in Highgarden now that Loras has passed – one that no one will fill, Willas knows.  His rooms are closed, and Mother tries to hide her tears.  It is gloomy to be in mourning, especially when it is for a boy’s bright light that has been forever doused.

Willas feels the loss of Loras, and the absence of his other siblings, keenly.  Save for Loras, who squired at Storms End, he has spent his entire life with Margaery and Garlan, and he does not take kindly to their absence. He knows his temper has flared too often at the servants, though he is apologetic afterwards.  He is restless, trapped inside like a caged beast.

His heart festers, wanting to protect his family – wanting revenge, and his family reunited, whole and in one piece, an impossible feat.

Grandmother summons him one afternoon to say that Margaery has been tried and found innocent by the Faith.

“When will she return?” Willas asks.  Grandmother scoffs.

“With your father as Hand of the King?  She will stay in Kings Landing as Queen.”

“Perhaps that is good, then,” Willas admits.  “Having them both there when Aegon Targaryen arrives to claim his birthright will be useful.  The Lannisters are impotent.  Who is to say that Margaery cannot convince her husband to give up the throne, and that Father cannot prepare the city for them?”

Grandmother smiles.  “Send a rider to Storm’s End.  Find out what is taking Garlan so long.”

...

When he is lonely, Willas thinks of Sansa Stark.  He feels sorrow at her fate, whatever that might be.

Willas is selfish.  He wishes the marriage had taken place, even if she was so much younger than him.  Not because of his desires, which are that of every man, but because he wants someone to talk to.  There is no one here who understands him, no one he can speak his mind to. He is so lonely, and a wife might have prevented some of the loneliness.

He considers looking at the other houses of the Reach, but he has done that before and found none to his liking.

Perhaps he will try again once the war is over.

Perhaps.

He is getting tired of being alone.

...

In the end, Kings Landing watches as the Baratheon banner falls.

Cersei Lannister is found dead – her throat slit by an assassin in the night.  Rumor has it that it was orchestrated by the Bravosi, for all the money borrowed and yet to be repaid by the fallen regime.

Tommen Bartheon dies as well – killed by the hand of Aegon Targaryen, son of Rhaegar, while Margaery screams until she faints or so he hears.  Willas does not shed a tear at the boy-king’s death, but rather at his sister, who is at the mercy of the Mummer’s Dragon and his army.  Jon Connington, his Hand, assures him that Margaery will not be hurt.  A fourth marriage is discussed – Aegon apparently finds his sister quite comely.

Father remains to acquaint the Targaryens with the running of the city, bending the knee on behalf of the Reach to House Targaryen, not Aegon, at Willas’ suggestion. 

(It is a move that will later save them with the true ruler comes on the back of her dragons.)

The Ironborn attack the Reach again, and are driven back, again, by Garlan before disappearing completely, their ranks scattered in a well-timed storm that even Krakens could not survive.

Willas is anxious, nervous, as things fall into place slowly.  He does not like to bet on the wrong horse.

Dragons arrive.

The second son of Rhaegar Targaryen is found on the Wall, hidden in plain sight wearing the bastard cloak of House Stark for all these years (for he is a Stark bastard as well as a Targaryen, but there are fewer dragons than wolves these days).

The firstborn daughter of Ned Stark is found in the Vale with a legion of knights at her command. 

The Vale has not joined in the fighting and so their knights are fresh, their supply lines well-stocked, their men eager for victory.

The North rises under the banner of House Stark, led by Sansa Stark and her knights of the Vale.  Within a few short weeks, the entire tide of the war changes as, in the dead of winter, Roose Bolton is overthrown at the Dreadfort and at Winterfell by the combined forces of the Vale, the North, and Stannis Baratheon.

Stories arrive in Highgarden of Sansa Stark, now a young woman, demanding that her home be returned to her.  She is as fierce as Willas always imagined, as fierce as a wolf-maid – so fierce that he fears she would never have survived here as a Tyrell (they are too delicate, his Southron people, for someone as fierce as she).

...

As Winterfall is retaken, and the North returned to the Starks, and when the dust clears, it is Daenerys Targaryen, first of her name, that sits on the Iron Throne. 

When the dust clears, House Tyrell is summoned to Kings Landing to bend the knee.

Father stays behind.  Willas chooses to go.


End file.
